Initially called the Modding API, it has been planned in some capacity since at least July 5, 2010, shortly after the release of
Alpha 1.0.1_01.
[12] It was then stated to be released in Beta 1.8.
[13] The Modding API was then rebranded as the Plugin API, with the release originally stated to be planned for 1.3, then for 1.4, and then it was accidentally stated by Curse that it would be implemented in 1.5, but has since been delayed.
[14][15]
As of October 26, 2013, the Plugin API cannot be found on its GitHub page. Furthermore, the developer website has also been taken offline (
http://dev.minecraft.net). However, Dinnerbone has mentioned that many changes made in the past few years have been preparation for the Plugin API.
[16]
On July 5th 2015, Grum briefly commented on the plugin API following a question at the "The Minecraft Team - Behind the Scenes" panel.
[17] He explained the team didn't think they could produce anything better than what Forge offered with the current codebase and as such it didn't make sense to do exactly the same as Forge. He reiterated what had been said about past changes to the code being preparation for the API.
When Dinnerbone was working on the loot tables for
1.9, he tweeted on October 19, 2015: "And all I'm saying is that these very things that make the game so much easier to modify are huge steps towards an API."
[18] A user replied "I think an official "we're working on it" would really help a lot"
[19] to which Dinnerbone replied "We're working on it."
[20]